There are a large number of mobile, digital devices like e-readers, gaming consoles, smartphones and tablet computers that are used to view various kinds of content including, but not limited to, books, webpages, images, and lists and collections of said content or representation of such content. In many cases, the content is larger than can be conveniently viewed on the screen of the device. Users then use different means to move the visible portion of the content on the screen, such as pressing their finger to the screen and moving their finger across the screen to view the portion of the content that they wish to view.
A disclosed embodiment of the present invention is an application that utilizes a scrollable display on a device, such as those found on smartphones and tablet devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablet computers. In situations where a user is viewing content that cannot be conveniently viewed on the screen of the device, the content is usually displayed in parts. The application controls the portion of the content displayed by taking a first input from the user, in this case, an initial scrolling direction and an initial scrolling speed determined by the user dragging his/her finger across the screen (as is usually done for scrolling purposes). Further, the application uses this first input to continually change the visible portion of the content according to a speed set by the first input. For adjustments to this speed, the user may either provide another input to restart or stop the process, or may simply tilt the device. At periodic intervals, the difference in orientation of the device and a reference orientation are compared, and thus the speed is controlled based on the tilt. The scrolling continues until either there is another gesture detected on screen, or until the screen reaches the end of the content. Either of these stops the automatic scroll until the user uses another natural flick anywhere on the screen to start it again.